Rolf Hochhuth’s Der Stellvertreter is Costa-Gavras’s Amen
The theater premiere of Der Stellvertreter (The Deputy) took place on 12 September 2001 at the Berliner Ensemble. The film by Costa-Gavras, Amen., premiered on 13 February 2002 at the 52nd Berlinale. Was the idea to program Hochhuth’s »Christian tragedy« on stage and screen at about the same time a pure coincidence? One could almost say that both of these quite different productions should prick the conscience and serve as a warning for those presently responsible for the current outburst of war and terror. Although today’s media hinders a veil of silence to fall over certain events, and despite the fact that we have easy access to information around the clock, still we don’t really know what is kept a secret for various reasons and which information is being purposely held back. The correspondents themselves are known to protest.
The merit of Hochhuth’s play Der Stellvertreter written forty years ago, when he was 31, and premiered by Erwin Piscator at the Freie Volksbühne in Berlin, where it was nothing short of a scandal is the disclosure of the incredible silence on the part of Pope Pius XII in regard to the extermination of the Jews during the Second World War. Had he raised his voice and condemned this crime, he could have saved the lives of many condemned to death and taken measures to check the spread of the Holocaust by the Nazis. Ever since Hochhuth threw light on this ticklish subject, it has led to massive protests by the Catholic Church up to the present day. Without Hochhuth’s play, would the truth of the Pope’s behavior have remained a secret, and would the Vatican have preferred to keep silent? Instead of reconsidering the past, however, it is now pushing to canonize this Pope!
Since 1963, Der Stellvertreter has been staged in 100 cities, here and abroad, and it has been translated into 28 languages. However, until the Costa-Gavras production, it has not be seen as a film nor broadcast on television. After the press screening of Amen. at the Berlinale, Hochhuth, somewhat flattered, a bit indignant, expressed himself at the press conference more or less as follows: »Finally!« he shouted from the stand finally a foreign director has dealt with the touchy case of the shameless silence of the Catholic Church and its Pope Pius XII in regard to the extermination of the Jews, and he has made amends for the decades of cowardice by German directors and television stations.
It was not easy to film Der Stellvertreter. In Amen., running at two hours,Costa-Gavras was required, on one hand, to hold onto the integrity of the text and the complexity of the historical events. And, on the other hand, he had make full use of filmic means that go beyond the range of theater and tell the story in appropriate images. For example, the driving of full and empty cattle-wagons to and from the extermination site conveys in penetrating images how millions of people were led to their deaths. Thus he swings back and forth between a »costume« play and an authentic chronicle of what was experienced in all its agony. One views the film from a certain distance and is not emotionally drained or cut to the bone. Perhaps this is because the Hochhuth text does not easily lend itself to a filmic adaptation. For on the stage as was evidenced once again in the Berliner Ensemble production it’s the spoken word, and that alone, that is at the core of the audience experience.
The film Amen., shot in English, has done a great service by exposing to the entire world the unforgivable behavior of Pope Pius XII. Much care was taken to cast the right actors for their sensitive roles: Ulrich Tukor as SS-Officer Kurt Gerstein, Matthieu Kassovitz as the young Jesuit Ricardo, Ulrich Mühe as the Nazi doctor, and Ion Caramitru as Count Fontana. As befits a veteran director, Costa-Gavras does not depict what cannot be depicted people dying in the gas chamber. And yet there is a moment in which everything is said when the SS-Officers look through a peep-hole to view the victims squashed into the gas chamber. As we watch the faces of the perpetrators of this heinous crime, we hear a vibration behind the iron-encased wall.
The production of Der Stellvertreter at the Berliner Ensemble enabled theater goers to become reacquainted with the play, the courage, and the artistic creativity of Rolf Hochhuth. But not just that: Philip Tiedemann’s direction also fascinated by focusing primarily on the behavior of Pope in the play. Since the actors and stage director had their work cut for them beforehand namely, via the spoken word they do not stray far afield. For that matter, the dramatic disclosure of the silence of Pope Pius XII to the Nazi outrage has been sketched by Hochhuth so close to life and reality that every figure on stage all played with convincing clarity contribute to the illuminating process and author’s enlightening mandate. That mandate is enhanced even further by a splendid performance by Michael Rehberg as an indifferent Pope Pius XII. In contrast to Costa-Gavras’s Amen.,
Philip Tiedemann’s Der Stellvertreter does not dispense with the final act that even Piscator cut from his Freie Volksbühne production: the gas chamber scene at Auschwitz. Although only presented in silent images, the naked actors walking slowly into the fire do not have the same impact as what has happened before. Perhaps this constitutes the fundamental difference between a film adaptation and a stage production. In any case, this highly recommended production can be seen at the Berliner Ensemble until the end of the 2002 season.
Dorothea Paschen